Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that if there is a task on your
Speaker 1: to do list that you keep kicking forward, maybe you
Speaker 1: don't actually have to do it at all. And if
Speaker 1: the task can wait, can you eliminate it instead. Longtime
Speaker 1: listeners know that I advocate seeing your to do list
Speaker 1: as a contract with yourself. If you put something on
Speaker 1: your list, you are committing to getting it done on
Speaker 1: a specific day. I know not everyone agrees with me
Speaker 1: on this, and I also know that life happens even
Speaker 1: if you truly intended to accomplish a task on a
Speaker 1: given day. There are times when unexpected things come up,
Speaker 1: when you have a new demand on your time, when
Speaker 1: something takes a lot longer than you had any reason
Speaker 1: to expect, so you prioritize whatever has to be done
Speaker 1: that day and roll forward the rest. There are some
Speaker 1: tasks that are important but not necessarily urgent, like identifying
Speaker 1: your career goals for the year ahead, exploring an idea
Speaker 1: for a new service line for your business, or building
Speaker 1: a relationship with a new colleague. Those should happen, but
Speaker 1: don't have to happen at a specific time. So if
Speaker 1: you plan to spend a morning charting out your long
Speaker 1: term career goals, but you have a kid home with
Speaker 1: the flu or an urgent request from your boss or
Speaker 1: biggest client, it makes sense to reschedule the career planning
Speaker 1: for another time, So do choose a new time. You
Speaker 1: do want to eventually do these things, but with some
Speaker 1: other tasks. If you don't get to them on the
Speaker 1: day you initially plan to do them, you may be
Speaker 1: able to scribble them off the list altogether. Any sort
Speaker 1: of email newsletter that you don't read the day it arrives,
Speaker 1: you could probably just delete. If you plan to do
Speaker 1: a full clean out of your closet over the weekend
Speaker 1: and you didn't, maybe it really wasn't that important to you.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can throw out some ripped items and drop
Speaker 1: a few others in a donation bin and just call
Speaker 1: it a day. Some work tasks that keep getting rescheduled
Speaker 1: make qualify for the cutting block too. Does the binder
Speaker 1: you're creating for new board members really need to include
Speaker 1: an organization history and staff org chart. If you keep
Speaker 1: moving these items forward to the next days or the
Speaker 1: next week's priority list. Take the hint that those may
Speaker 1: not be the two most important components. It is quite
Speaker 1: possible no one will notice they are missing. If you're
Speaker 1: having a hard time with letting go of these tasks,
Speaker 1: set a reminder to yourself for next year at this
Speaker 1: time to reconsider this decision. If you have managed to
Speaker 1: live your life in the apps of something, probably the
Speaker 1: task can be gone for good. If you don't get
Speaker 1: to something the day you would plan to, rather than
Speaker 1: reflexively moving it to the next day or the next day,
Speaker 1: consider whether you can just skip the task instead. If
Speaker 1: it is not essential that you do a task today,
Speaker 1: is it important that you ever do it? Sometimes yes,
Speaker 1: but sometimes the answer is actually no, and that is
Speaker 1: pretty liberating to realize. If you eliminate any unnecessary tasks
Speaker 1: from your to do list, you can tell me what
Speaker 1: you cross out and how you feel. You can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to before breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.